Beautiful Nightmares
by Moon Goddess Mira
Summary: For Sarah Williams, victory was short lived and bittersweet; for her dreams have now been shattered to dust only to be replace by nightmares.  Nightmares that leave her questioning herself as well at the intentions of someone else.


**Disclaimer:** I don't own the rights to Labyrinth or its characters. I'm simply writing this for fun and not profit, thank you.

**A/N:** Hi guys. It's been a long time since I wrote. In all truth, it takes me a lot of encouragement and harassment to keep up with it. But right now, I am really like what I have here, and I hope you guys do to. So please read and review for my sake.

**Chapter 1: Her Curse**

A slight breeze rustled the long blades of grass in the meadow. It bounced between a small army of trees that rested on the edge of the flower dotted turf. Once through the trees, the wind seemed to play along the brook where it stayed to play with two small boys whose imagination had already transformed the brook and forest into many places. At the moment, the boys were leaping from stone to stone in an attempt to not get soaked while the wind lifted their hair off their foreheads and tugged their clothes as if trying to push them into the shallow water instead.

It was this same breeze that Sarah seemed to follow in her quest to find her brother. In reality, though she was listening to his voice cheer and his laughter ring through the trees. The meadow and brook weren't far from her childhood home; even she used to play here when she wasn't at the park. She smiled as she came upon the two blond children playing at some game. They weren't even aware of her presence yet, and she was fine with just watching for the moment. After all, it had been a long time since she was allowed to imagine with such abandon.

As she watched, she took in the two boys; one was her brother, Toby, whose hair was darker then the near white of his friend's hair. Toby was also shorter and perhaps had a little more baby fat on him, though it was hard to tell without seeing the other boy's face. Her sharp eyes also noted that grace was not Toby's strong suit as his pants were already covered in mud and she was sure his shoes were beyond hope. Her smile widened as her brother slipped off the rock he was balancing on and landed in the water on his bottom, soaked from head to toe.

"Hurry!" cried the other boy, "Hurry get back on your rock," his voice seemed urgent, "If you don't the goblins will get you," He pointed, "Look! I see one, he's gaining!"

Sarah gasped and her heart seemed to skip a beat when she heard the word goblin. Her eyes snapped to the spot where the boy was pointing and then to Toby, who was scrambling back on the rock he had last occupied. She breathed a sigh of relief at his safety. She shook her head, it was silly. She was stupid to jump at a word. She had defeated the Goblin King. He had no claims on Toby anymore; she had said her right words and gotten him back. Besides, it was such a long time ago.

She looked back at Toby, who was smiling triumphantly as he kicked at an invisible enemy, "Take that!" Toby shouted. Then he looked back at his friend to say something more; but, for the first time, he noticed his sister. His face lit up as he cried out, "SARAH!"

Toby jumped into the creek as he ran toward his sister, arms spread wide to capture her in a very wet hug.

"Hiya, booger," She said as she squeezed him close and kissed the top of his head. Toby wrinkled his sun kissed nose in disgust and she giggled in return. Toby pulled away to turn to his friend.

"Hey, Jared," He cried, "Come meet my sister!"

The tall, thin boy lifted his head as he began to move gracefully towards the two. When his and Sarah's eyes meet, she gasped. Mismatched; one blue and one brown. An ominous smile crept across the young boy's features as he seemed to grow and morph, "I believe we've met before."

Her mouth formed an 'O' as she woke up screaming. Her heart was pounding heavily in her ears as she attempted to untangle herself from the bed sheets. She reached for the bedside lamp and flipped it on. The low wattage bulb cast harsh shadows around the room capable of creating creatures only Sarah's mind could imagine.

She swallowed hard as she tried to clear her mind of her dream thoughts and order the world around her. In truth, that was one of the tamer nightmares. She had had much worse. She usually didn't even wake up screaming anymore. But tonight had been different; it was the first one in five years that involved _him _disguised as something innocent. To make matters worse, he had been playing with Toby. Alone. Her heart hurt at the thought. Toby was hers, her hand flexed into automatic fists ready to start swinging at her adversary. She was almost tempted to call her parents to make sure her brother was safe and sound in his bed, but after looking at her clock, she decided that it wasn't such a good idea. After all, Karen's shrieking about Sarah calling at 3 am would probably wake the whole house. She could wait until morning, after all, someone in her family deserved to be well rested if she couldn't be.

In fact, Sarah hadn't slept well since about three months after her victory in the Labyrinth. Her first nightmares had been dark and dreary, as if she were trapped in an oubliette that had a very small light leak. Her hands had felt around the walls for hours on end until she woke up feeling exhausted. Sometimes in those dreams, she would stumble across something more frightening like a skeleton or a larger then possible spider. As the months moved on, her nightmares evolved with them. Soon she was running endlessly trying to get somewhere but always passing the same point, over and over. True, it was merely frustrating at first, but these soon changed into something chasing her. Something she didn't want catching her, didn't want touching her, and her mind screamed that it would devour her if it got the chance. They only got worse. Chasing nightmares became encountering nightmares. Creatures she couldn't believe she had imagined; creatures that made her skin crawl and hairs prickle just thinking of them.

She felt she couldn't totally be behind it all. It was all too coincidental; the oubliette, the maze, the strange creatures. As if for confirmation of her fears, _he_ began to appear in them. He was continuously laughing at her misfortunes as she took another wrong turn, or ran into another one of the terrible monsters that hunted her relentlessly. Worse still were the dreams when it was just the two of them, dancing as they had in the ballroom where she was supposed to forget about her brother. Neither of them would talk. Sarah, on her side, knew it was her own natural stubbornness and anger that prevented conversation; she had little concern on why he didn't speak.

Still though, part of her truly believed that she was the cause of the nightmares. Some kind of guilt connected to her victory. _He_ had looked so sad that she had refused. Part of her blamed that sadness on his bad sportsmanship at losing, but another part told her there was something more behind it.

Perhaps… No, she wouldn't do it. There was no way she would break the silence. But then tonight, he had spoken for the first time. She smiled; she had won yet another battle with him. She was sure she could claim more victories yet.

She lay back on her pillows, for a moment looking forward to sleep. Only seconds before the sandman claimed her, did she remember it would be yet another night before she would be able to speak to him. Even then, it was only if she had another ballroom dream. But it was too late to worry about it now; the blackness of dreamless sleep had already made its mark on her. She would dream of nothing and wake up as poorly rested as she had done so many times before.


End file.
